New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas is among the Christians upset over the decision by LifeWay Christian Stores to remove “The Blind Side” from its shelves because it contained profanity and racial slurs. He says objections over the language miss the point of the film and such reactions make it hard for Christians to be taken seriously in cultural discussions.
Metaxas, a rising evangelical voice who is best known for his biographies on William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, expressed his disapproval of LifeWay’s move to pull “The Blind Side” in a commentary for BreakPoint radio this week.
“I’m kind of upset. A great movie was pulled from the shelves of a Christian bookstore chain,” he said on the July 5 program. “Look, I’m as concerned about cultural messages as anyone. I’m a father. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this – and the wrong way definitely includes the permanent state of umbrage that many Christians seem to exhibit. They seem to have confused being salt and light with being curmudgeons.”
LifeWay Christian Stores, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, made the call to remove copies of the inspirational movie from its shelves last month after a Florida pastor within the denomination complained over the language used in the film. The film tells the true story of NFL player Michael Ohr, an impoverished young black man, who is saved from inner city gang activity and homelessness when a white Christian family adopts him.
The pastor had proposed a resolution for the SBC’s annual meeting June 18-20 that called on LifeWay to pull the PG-13 movie and any other products that contain “explicit profanity, God’s name in vain, and a racial slur.” Wanting to avoid controversy at the annual meeting, officials at LifeWay announced that the movie would no longer be sold.
Metaxas pointed out that the objectionable language helped to realistically depict the “unpleasant world” from which Ohr was rescued from. He disagreed with the Florida pastor’s reasoning that the presence of this movie in Christian bookstores would make children more likely to “embrace” this kind of behavior.
Source: Christian Post | Elena Garcia
